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Craig Pennington
Mrs.Danley
12 CP Lang Arts
7 January 2016
Media is the means of mass communication, and has advantages and disadvantages. Communication is important to everyone, humans share, change, and create ideas through this process. To learn and become better this is mandatory for all humans. Media makes access to unlimited knowledge so easy all you have to do is pull a phone out of your pocket and press the screen. Because of this we need to educate and train our students to properly use and create media.
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate in media. It is pivotal that generations of young people have this skill, because if they do not they are missing out on a changing and more interactive education system. But don’t forget there are also down sides to media. False knowledge can be mass produced, people’s reputations can be ruined with one push of a button, and you cannot always accurately decipher the motives, intentions, and emotions of a person that created the information. With these problems it makes it essential to be media literate.
There are numerous websites that sole purpose is to help teachers use media to educate students. This is causing textbooks to become out of date and no longer necessary, which is a weight off my shoulders. See what I did there? I think media has the potential to keep revolutionizing the education system and make our future generations’ better workers and better people.
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Craig Pennington
Danley
12 Language Arts
3/30/16
Bullying
I pledge to not look away if another human being is being bullied. Bullying is an awful thing that can cause detrimental effects on human beings. It can cause anger problems, depression, and in extreme cases depression. I have been bullied all through my life and I does not feel good, but I am an optimist so I could always look at the bright side of things and rely on God to get me through. Regardless it still had negative effects on me. I thought that I was just mediocre. I used to look at myself in the mirror and judge myself very hard and I actually believed that I was stupid. If mine was that devastating with family and friends that built me back up when I was down I cannot imagine a person that has no support system. Standing up for a kid that is getting bullied can change someone’s life, and you can make a friend very easily.
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Craig Pennington
Ms.Danley
12th Language Arts
2/10/16
Advertising and The Effects
Advertising is powerful and is a great way to get messages across to a large population. Just as Stalin and Hitler used negative propaganda, negative commercials, billboards, and shows can have the same effect. In this day and age we are always around a T.V. or a phone or a computer which causes us to constantly see advertisements, which if were not careful will gain an influence over our thoughts.
Slowly more and more we are seeing commercials and television shows that demean men whether they are children or husbands. We are constantly portrayed as weak minded, easy manipulated, and lazy. What makes a man is leadership, integrity, and consistency, so portraying men as weak minded, easy manipulated, and lazy tells aspiring men that that’s how they are supposed to act. This is exactly why “approximately 15 million (children) live without one (a father)” (James Nye). Men are taught that this is how we are supposed to act, so instead of demeaning us in media and advertisement actually give us good role models like Andy Taylor and Bill Cosby, not Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin.
Nye, James. "1 in 3 Children in the U.S. Live without Their Father as Number of Two-parent Households Falls by 1.2m in Ten Years." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 26 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.
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Craig Pennington
Ms.Danley
12th Language Arts
2/12/16
Media and Its Manipulative Tendencies
Manipulation is the skillful handling, controlling or using of something or someone. Manipulation is easily noticed if you’re looking for it and prepared, but to the unsuspecting mind it has a powerful effect.
Media is getting better and sneakier with each commercial that comes out on how to send messages whether through body language, products, or words that make you subliminally pick up on messages, but not be so noticeable that you actually stop and consciously think about it. For example when you’re watching the newest box office movie and you see your favorite superhero crack open a cold refreshing coke, or when you see the top athletes in the world using the latest Nike products, it’s not necessarily because they like them but they are being paid money to use and give notoriety to that item.
The problem with this is that we have to constantly be on guard, we can’t go to a movie or a sporting event and just enjoy it without the chance of being manipulated into buying something. We need to be careful when we are watching any kind of media advertisement otherwise we have a high change of succumbing to their thought processes instead of our own.
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Craig Pennington
Danley
12th Language Arts
3/30/16
Apple
Apple should not open the phone for the FBI. There is a privacy that apple owes us, but even more important there is a certain level of privacy that our government owes everyone. I think that if the government opens this phone, how many phones are the government going to open because they feel there is a terrorist threat? Governments always start off slow and keep taking away privacy and freedoms until they feel they have complete control, but that’s not the basis that the USA was founded on. I think more than ever we as an American people need to stick up for ourselves instead of giving in to fear and letting freedoms go for protection. Apple giving in will be the first step in all of this. The FBI thinks security is more important that freedom and privacy, which scares me. They need to know their place. Even though their job is to protect us, they have no right to infringe on our property. So Apple should not be forced into opening this phone.
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Craig Pennington
Danley
12th Language Arts
3/25/16
Donald
Donald trump said, “I've seen numbers of 24 percent -- I actually saw a number of 42 percent unemployment. Forty-two percent.” he said this during a televised press conference. Trump often likes to use numbers and opinions that are at the most extreme side of what he is saying to try to make what he says seem more plausible, but 42… not even 24 percent is accurate. Trump doesn’t realize (nor do I think most of America does) that the unemployment rate only counts the amounts of citizens that are looking for work, not couch potatoes living in their moms basement playing the newest call of duty. If you counted everyone between the ages of 16+ and analyzed every single person that doesn’t have a job, the number is still only 16.4 percent. In essence trump is the ultimate fabricator.
Cruz
“Let me tell you the facts that occurred for those who are interested in knowing,” Cruz said. “On Monday night, about 6:30 p.m. CNN reported that Ben was not going from Iowa to New Hampshire or South Carolina. Rather he was ‘taking a break from campaigning.”. Cruz completely scammed all of the voter, he said that ben Carson was dropping out of the race after the Iowa caucus, this was based on a CNN report that stated he was going back home to get a fresh change of clothes. Cruz knew that most ben Carson supporters are going to vote for him more than any of the other candidates, so he told Carson supporters falsified information to get those votes for him so he could hopefully be competitive with trump.
Hillary
"I remember landing under sniper fire." She said. There is a video of her landing in Bosnia completely safe walking with a smile on her face, and receiving a poem from an 8 year old girl. Hilary Clinton likes to lie to get sympathy and try to empathize with people of minorities. She basically just piggy backs off of Bernie sanders ideas because she want to get the young vote when he loses the race. Hilary Clinton has been caught lying more that her husband, should she really be a presidential candidate.
Bernie
"When you're white ... you don't know what it's like to be poor."
…………….. First off let me say Bernie sanders is an idiot. Second let me say Bernie sanders was poor for most of his life until he became a politician so he should know from experience that white people know what it’s like to be poor. Third let me state that my family has always lived in rags, from being hobos that hop trains from immigrants from hungry all the way too farmers. My mother go a good desk job and that made us the first people in our family to make 6 figures in a year, so though I barely remember what it was like for our family before that I’ve heard the stories and I’ve seen the scars. Fourth in 2014 almost twenty million white people live in poverty… Hey Bernie get you head out of your &$$ and stop saying stupid things so you can gain minority vote. (Drops the mic)
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Danley
12th Language Arts
5/6/16
The American Revolution completely changed the world as we know it. It created the most powerful country in this world still to date. It created a dominant power that has a solid influence in so many countries. It create a country that revolutionized the trade market, and the way countries should set up their government.
The American people got fed up with the oppression and unfair treatment from the British government, and this caused a lot of tension and anger in the country. When you get a lot of angry people together and focus their sights on one goal, in this case freedom, they are almost unstoppable. It helped that we also had help from France, who sent military forces and supplies to help our militaries organization and moral.
The American people were being forced to submit to a government that was all the way across the ocean. They had tried to be civil but the king took it as a joke, which in turn just incited the American people more. They decided to act instead of submit and this is what made our country what it is today.
They started their own government and this created a lot of organization. We also used guerilla warfare which let us use hit and run tactics on the unsuspecting British troops because they were still using traditional fighting tactics
Today I see much of the same thing, angry middle class majority citizens that are sick of being controlled by big government and are trying to elect someone that’s not a “politician”. Two of the top five candidates had no previous political involvement, and one of those is the current leader by a wide majority. People are sick of being told what to do by a small minority, and want to have the power back in the hands of the majority. They are sick of being viewed as weak because our current administration has portrayed us to be like that. If we are not careful and let the hate take control and don’t keep our eyes focused on the end goal, nothing will get fixed though.
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Craig Pennington
Danley
12th Language Arts
3/30/16
Is Technology Sent From Heaven?
Orwell was explaining how before, in the free market and society that they had, science and technology was increasing at great speeds because they had freedom to think for themselves and could sell the product how they would like. Now in their society, thought is restricted to the point that they are even changing the language to restrict their thought. No one had money to create new technology because of how much war had been going on, and the country and the people were broke. He also says that the country was do regimented that the habit of thought couldn’t even survive because they were told how to think and how to act, otherwise they would be vaporized. Science and technology is a product of creativity and in a society that restricts that, science and technology can’t improve.
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Craig Pennington
Danley
12th Language Arts
5/2/16
S’more 13
Gaslighting is manipulating someone’s sanity by questioning and changing their memory. Gaslighting causes the victims to constantly second guess themselves, apologize constantly, lack of feeling in their life (melancholy), trouble making decisions, and experience a lack of joy and happiness. It’s a slippery slope when you are the victim because it’s extremely hard to understand what the person is doing to you.
People in power, especially politicians have started using this technique to try to get even more power. One case of this was Senator McCarthy, who spread lies that half of the government was infiltrated with communists, and anyone who opposed him was thrown in jail because he claimed that they were communists. This antic worked because this was done during the Cold War and everyone had an unhealthy fear of communism and the Soviet Union. He gained power quickly but eventually everyone realized they had been duped.
The only way we can stop this is by being cautious and putting facts next to what people say. You can’t get preconceived notions because of internal fears or because of outside sources. I don’t think there really is a way to keep people accountable, you just have to keep yourself educated.
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Craig Pennington
Danley
12 Language Arts
5/6/16
S’more 14
Phone are a necessity to survive in today’s society. Having instant access to anyone anytime makes our life a lot easier. The problem is created when instead making time for someone you settle to talk or text them over a phone. There’s a realness when you’re face to face with someone that Facetime lacks. You can’t touch someone over Facetime, nor can you understand someone’s tone over text messages, but in this society that is obsessed with speed instead of quality, many settle for conversations over phone. For those that actually get out of the house and hang out with someone that you love I commend you, but we’ve all hung out with someone that can’t get off their phone we you’re trying to talk to them, and it makes you realize someone’s priorities. So next time you’re with a loved-one keep your phone in your pocket, because giving someone your full undivided attention usually means more to someone than you realize.
Our society is obsessed with wasting time on things that won’t make a difference to the big picture of life, but we claim that were so busy. I’m guilty just as much as anyone of this. What if instead of all the time that I’ve wasted on social media, I spent all that time drumming, reading my Bible, or increasing the strength of my relationships, I wonder how much better I’d be as a whole. We can curb our addiction though, all you have to do is limit yourself. Be in control of what you’re doing all time, and know how long you’ve been looking at Facebook, because you can scroll your way through your life if you’re not careful. Nearly 7 percent of our society is depressed, that one out of every 14 people. I’ve experienced mild depression because I felt alone, and when people reach out to you, you reject their offer to hang out because you honestly don’t feel like it. Social media and a lack of realness in our relationships has only added to this problem. So I advise you to make a change and realize that Siri will never love you, but there’s a whole world outside your door step waiting to.
part 2
Craig Pennington
Danley
12 th
5/9/16
S’more 14 Part 2
My ideas have deepened a lot since the beginning of the semester. I’ve learned a lot about media literacy and how to handle media. I’m glad I took this class because it was way different than al my other language arts classes I’ve taken in this past. We talk about current events and discuss politics, whereas in all of my previous classes we decipher old poems and correct our grammar.
This class has made me understand the effects that advertising has on our society and how manipulative it is. It can make you do and buy things that the advertiser wants you to if you’re not in control of your thoughts, which brings me to the biggest thing I’ve learned so far in this class, you have to be aware of all your actions and your thoughts, otherwise your individuality will be stripped from you very quickly. Without our individuality we are just like the proles, easy to control and manipulate.
I think the only thing that would make this class simpler and easier would be to have a few less S’mores.
Smore 14 Part 2
Craig Pennington
Danley
12th Language Arts
5/9/16
S’more 14 Part 2
My ideas have deepened a lot since the beginning of the semester. I’ve learned a lot about media literacy and how to handle media. I’m glad I took this class because it was way different than al my other language arts classes I’ve taken in this past. We talk about current events and discuss politics, whereas in all of my previous classes we decipher old poems and correct our grammar.
This class has made me understand the effects that advertising has on our society and how manipulative it is. It can make you do and buy things that the advertiser wants you to if you’re not in control of your thoughts, which brings me to the biggest thing I’ve learned so far in this class, you have to be aware of all your actions and your thoughts, otherwise your individuality will be stripped from you very quickly. Without our individuality we are just like the proles, easy to control and manipulate.
I think the only thing that would make this class simpler and easier would be to have a few less S’mores.